Apocalypse Eclipse Session 20
The twentieth session of Apocalypse Eclipse Preceded by Apocalypse Eclipse Session 19 Blindfest begins their investigation into the cause of Janus Gull's temporal troubles, coming first to a crumbling monastery dedicated to Buragan. Claudiu spots what looks to be a paladin of Buragan performing an intricate ritual inside. The group enters the structure to talk with the man, but he is swallowed up by a rift in space appearing above him. Aberrant creatures emerge, and engage the adventurers in battle. They prove to be little trouble and are destroyed. The adventurers investigate the rest of the monastery, Nehem seeing if there are any artifacts worth recovering and Claudiu surreptitiously desecrating what he can find. They eventually move on to the town itself and start asking people on the street questions about any strange activity. They are informed that they might find information at a temple shared by followers of Labelas Enoreth and Buragan. They are also told that tensions are running high between the factions and to tread carefully. Blindfest makes their way to the temple, but the conflict has reached a boiling point and the two factions are soon engaged in combat with each other, though the adventurers are able to calm down a small group long enough to learn that the tension originated due to conflicting prophesies. Unable to find any other leads, they decide to travel through the resetting of time to see if they retain their memories. During the temporal event, they are faced with horrible visions that attempt to assault their minds. Claudiu and Bane are a bit shaken, but the heroes eventually find themselves returned to the outskirts of town. They are relieved to find their memories intact and make all haste to the ruined castle, hoping that saving the paladin of Buragan will help to diffuse tension in the temple. They debate outside for a bit, worried that breaking the paladin's concentration on his ritual is what led to his demise, but eventually they can see a rift beginning to open in the same location as last time. Nehem decides to rush in and pull the man away from the rift. The man introduces himself as Josen, a paladin of Buragan and thanks the party. They all make their way to the shared temple and manage to temporarily calm the situation down. The adventurers find the oracles and ask them what prophecies they had received to see if they could be interpreted differently. Blindfest quickly discovers that talking to the factions is useless, as multiple trips through the time loop have distorted their minds and makes reasoning with them impossible, so the party decides to bring the factions to the outskirts of town to see for themselves the strange cloud of nothingness surrounding them. Despite what they saw, the factions still refuse to fully believe the heroes, so Blindfest asks the factions to tell them secrets only they would know in order to prove their story. They do so, and soon afterwards Blindfest slips back into the realm of the strange temporal event. When they return from the nightmare-realm, Blindfest quickly rush the paladin to safety, run to the temple, and convince the oracles of the truth. Thankful, they inform Blindfest that their has been aberrant activity at the great library-temple dedicated to Ioun. As Blindfest makes it there they are greeted by a series of large, floating towers which are on fire. Running ahead to see what they can find out, they decide to sneak past the inferno to the final tower. When they reach it, it seems to have a series of strange magical locks and they decide to explore the other towers in order to find a means of opening the lock. Although they do take a bit of damage from exposure to the flames, the adventurers are able to break most of the locks except for one which has burned away. Before they have time to explore more, the towers sink into the ocean on which they were floating. Confident they now know what to do; Blindfest slips once more into the strange realm and the hour starts again. When they awake, they split up to save Josen from the aberrant rift, convince the followers of Buragan and Labelas Enoreth to not kill each other, and make it to the towers in time. The party is successful, and as they unlock the final tower at the temple to Ioun, they are eager to see what is waiting for them beyond the door. Followed by Apocalypse Eclipse Session 21 Recording * Part 1 - In which Blindfest travel to the town of Janus Gull and send some aberrant monsters to their tentacly graves. Also featuring, Desecration of Holy Sites and other fun tenants of Vecna. * Part 2 - In which Blindfest is forced to relive the same hour over and over, driving them slowly towards the edge of sanity. Also featuring, licking burning doors and other abuses of characters whose player's aren't present.